There is a pair of sneakers that were once rated as "the most comfortable shoes in the world" by time magazine.

It took Allbirds five years to move from online celebrities who are only popular in Silicon Valley circles to popular ones favored by capital.

Recently, it is reported in the market that the American wool sneaker brand Allbirds has hired banks, including Morgan Stanley, to help it prepare for IPO, and plans to go public as early as September.The target is valued at more than $2 billion.

Allbirds, founded in San Francisco in March 2016, focuses on the concept of sustainable development, focuses on the design of environmentally friendly footwear, and quickly became popular with the launch of a wool-made running shoe, "Wool Runner".

The shoes, which have been complained of as "grandma shoes" for their simple design, have not only become standard for Silicon Valley elites such as Google co-founder Larry Page, but have even attracted Oscar-winning actor Xiao Li as its shareholder.

Since its establishment, Allbirds has been completed accumulatively.Over 200 millionDollar financing. Among them, $50 million was raised in October 2018; $75 million in D-round financing was announced in the first quarter of 2020, and the E round of financing was completed in September of the same year, led by Franklin Templeton, a world-renowned money management company, and followed by Putonghua, Baillie Gifford, TDM Growth Partners, Rockefeller and other institutions.

Different from the well-known international sports brands, Allbirds has opened up a minority business road, attracted the attention of the market, and raised the capital's expectation of its development, but its competitiveness still has a certain breakthrough bottleneck.

A favorite of venture capitalists

The creation of Allbirds is special, after all, it is not common for a former New Zealand football team international to bond with a biotech engineer.

Tim Brown was born in New Zealand and is a professional footballer who retired after representing New Zealand at the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 and then went to study for an MBA at the London School of Economics.

In addition to football, this Mr. Brown has been trying to find new interests, design may be a good choice. He has always been obsessed with the design of sneakers, after all, fancy color matching and the huge brand Logo have been full of in his career, heWant to find shoes that are "simple and comfortable" and have a sense of sports and fashion.

Born in New Zealand, Tim Brown could not help thinking of good quality wool as a raw material, began research and production. A crowdfunding campaign to make woolen shoes was launched in 2014, which unexpectedly received an enthusiastic response, selling $120000 worth of shoes through the crowdfunding website in four days, scaring him into shutting down the campaign immediately.

Seeing the potential of the market, Tim Brown hit it off with Joey Zwillinger, an acquaintance biotechnology engineer and renewable materials expert, and started a business, determined to find a "simple" shoe.

The way to develop Internet celebrities

From the very beginning, the two men labeled their shoes as comfortable, simple and environmentally friendly, and wanted to achieve the goal of low carbon and sustainability.

As a result, the raw materials of the products are New Zealand Merino wool, South African eucalyptus fiber and Brazilian sugar cane, with a price of nearly $100. According to public data, unlike traditional materials, the wool shoes production process reduces energy consumption by 60%, water consumption by 95% and carbon emissions by 50%.

This position is just right.Poked at the demand point of the modern consumer population.. With the upgrading of consumption, low-carbon environmental protection has become a trend. Compared with paying attention to materialization and branding, high performance-to-price ratio has become the mainstream, especially the consumption concept of superimposed sustainable development. Innovation in the use of materials instead of man-made alternatives has naturally been favored by many people.

After all, many people are naturally fond of low-key and connotative values.

At first, it only attracted high-end talent in Silicon Valley, but later, with the exposure of the same style of technology tycoons, Hollywood stars and political stars began to wear it to guide the popularity, and Allbirds began to become popular.

With two types of shoes-running shoes (runner) and lazy shoes (lounger), Deep-Fried Chicken, who sold 1 million pairs of Allbirds in May 2018, has become a shoe ring.

In addition to the fact that positioning is popular with consumers, Allbirds's DTC (face to Consumer) model has also brought benefits to its business.

AllbirdsMain focus online direct salesOccasionally get a "facial scan" for the brand through a pop-up store.

The benefits of online direct selling are very real, that is, it can not only improve efficiency and reduce costs, but also make timely changes in marketing strategies by bypassing middlemen who earn the price difference and facing consumers. Especially through the interactive channel of social platform, you can get more real user feedback, and it can also be passed on by word of mouth directly through consumers, which is why Allbirds can maintain a certain degree of hot continuity.

But as the saying goes, soldiers who don't want to be generals are not good soldiers.

Similarly, a brand that rigidly adheres to one mu of land is not a good brand.

Allbirds, who has spent enough in niche circles, is no longer satisfied with being an Internet celebrity, it has taken steps to go out to sea, but when he faces the competition from the big names in the industry, the problems have already surfaced.

Is it bubble or real gold?

Over the past five years, Allbirds has successively entered China, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and other countries and regions, with more than 20 physical stores.

Among them, the Asian region, especiallyThe Chinese market is a potential treasure that Allbirds values very much.. After all, China's consumer market has a broad blue ocean potential, especially the diversified consumer demand of young people is more prominent. Among themChina's sports shoes and clothing market has a large volume, showing a trend of high growth.The market size is expected to be close to 600 billion yuan in 2025.

Allbirds China opened its first store in Shanghai in April 2019, followed by four offline stores in Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu.

It should be noted that throughout the current Chinese sports shoes and clothing marketIt may not be easy for Allbirds to grab this market share.

Although Allbirds has been building a unique competitive moat, that is, through comfort, durability, environmental protection and other labels to develop the concept of sustainable development, by specific groups of people for its drainage, to further enhance the sense of market presence. But the process of going out to sea may exist.not acclimatizedIt's a problem.

In the face of the recent upsurge of the national tide and the hot wind of the economy.Development and prosperity of domestic sports brandsEspecially with the transformation and innovation of domestic sports brands such as Li Ning, it has harvested the hearts of many consumers.

During the "618" period this year, sales of domestic sports brands Li Ning, Di Sant, FILA, Anta and Special step increased by 164%, 150%, 69%, 59% and 41% respectively compared with the same period last year, while overseas brands Adidas, Nike and Puma fell by 32%, 26% and 14% respectively.

The increase in sales led to a rise in performance, such as Li Ning, the China News exceeded expectations, and the stock price performance continued to break new highs, which is an important reason why sporting goods stocks have been strong from time to time recently.

On the contrary, foreign sports brands are bound to be attacked by certain competition, big brands are like this, and minority brands such as Allbirds may not be able to win much good in the sports shoes and clothing market.

To know that a bigger and stronger brand not only needs to attract the attention of consumers, but also needs to find the core people who recognize its brand values, but also needs to reach more consumers, from the minority to the public to some extent, in order to achieve comprehensive coverage of the market segment.

At present, Allbirds is still at this point.It is difficult to compete with other more popular brandsThe task of expanding brand recognition is arduous, and we can only continue to strengthen localized marketing, build communication bridges, gain an in-depth understanding of the demands of local consumers, enrich our own categories, and further find diversified business development points.

Conclusion

For a long time, Allbirds has exploded the popularity and produced certain benefits by focusing and influencing specific consumer groups and releasing its own brand influence. But how to really make this pair of wool shoes infiltrate more people's behavior is not easy every day.

Especially on the way of impact listing, whether its growth expectation and competitiveness can break the circle, there are some positive expectations, but there is still a big question mark. after allThe concept of sustainable development is not a unique moat.However, it is a trend towards normalization, and Allbirds should still be nervous.